Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2006/01/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Scott, While not an expert on it, I do have a bit of experience contact printing large format. It has a virtue all it's own when done from a large film negative - the sharpness and tonal scale are every bit as good as is possible for the film and camera to render. You can become extremely frustrated when you see prints made from enlarged negatives, they somehow seem less satisfying after you get used to the results of large format contact printing. The inherent danger is that the results can be so very addictive that you suddenly find yourself lusting for an 11x14 or a 12x20 banquet camera! Thank god for digital output - now you can scan any high quality negative (read Leica there), enlarge and manipulate it in Photoshop as you would in the darkroom, print it to clear acetate (Pictorio has an excellent transparency paper), and contact print it like a negative. All the spotting, dodging and burning, contrast adjustments, etc, are already done, consistently and repeatable! Five years later the print is still easily re-done, without having to re-read an old print-map. I have done this for silver and platinum papers, and it works great after you figure out the contrast curve for the papers of your choice. Not a whole lot different in concept to selecting developers for their contrast and tonal rendition on various papers. In this case you have to figure out the tonal response of the paper to the printed negative, but it is easily tested and calibrated. If you're sticking to black and white papers you can get by with a contact printing frame and a light bulb, maybe with a timer in the loop, but an audible metronome and a cardboard sheet work every bit as good. In my experience the most underrated and most critical piece of equipment is the contact printing frame. It must of course be flat, have high quality glass, be large enough to fit the film you are working with, and have secure but easily used pinch bars or clamps on the back to secure the film/paper under constant and even pressure. A split back is best if you think you might ever use a printing out paper, as it lets you open the back and evaluate half the paper's development, while holding the other half secure to assure proper re-alignment when you close it back up. New quality frames are in the $100 and up range, depending on size, so shop used if you must, but do not compromise quality to save money, you'll spend it later and hate the time in between. One that has enough wooden or metal frame area around the glass is useful - you want to me able to stick tape on the edges, where you can make marks and indicators to serve as a guide for dodging and burning. Since the image is contact printed, you lack the projected visual scene with which you compare your print map and then manipulate. For example - say you've test printed and determined that the foreground needs a 25% burn in with feathering along an area of 1/4 to 1 inch, to blend into a transition area, all this occurring about 3 inches up from the bottom of the negative. Once you place a new sheet of paper into the frame and put it under the light - how do you see this area? If you take your test print from before, lay it near the frame, put tape along the frame so that you can mark areas as reference points, then you have an external reference guide so that your dodging and burning can be keyed to these points. You can make a grid, or you can use flagging symbols telling yourself where to burn, where to dodge, and even number them to indicate what order you are doing this in, etc. One thing this will do for you is instill the desire to get a damn good exposure on the film in the first place. The better the negative, and the better handled it is, the less effort to make a contact print that is a gem to behold. BTW, another way to try out this whole concept is to take your Leica negative and enlarge/project it onto a sheet of Ilford Ortho film, or any other copy neg film, and then contact print this to make an inter-neg that you then contact print on paper. This way a 35mm negative can be made into a 8x10 positive, then contact printed (reversed) into an 8x10 negative, and this is used for contact printing. Digital negative making is easier, but only if you have a digital set up. As far as cameras go, there are a ton of new and used ones out there, and if your preference is studio work only, then either rail or flat bed will work, but a rail camera will give you a far better range of movements. These are critical for a lot of still life and table top work, but are over-kill for most portraiture. For portraiture you also needn't have near as much bellow reach as for table top & still life, where you may need twice the bellows length as the focal length of the lens (for 1:1 life size images). The most useful guide I've found yet for view camera use and lens selection is Steve Simmons' book titled "Using The View Camera" (ISBN 0-8174-6353-4). Of course, once you start purchasing all the films and papers and chemicals, you will undoubtedly start stimulating the vendors, and who knows, maybe add further impetus to the film renaissance that is occurring even as we speak! Best of light, Norm -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. 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